Year: 2021

We woke up relatively early,well late by Brisbane standards, and I packed a picnic and in our usual state of under preparedness, no ponchos, or sunscreen but two hats and some water and we set off with Niki in our hearts to conquer TableTop Mountain – No, we are not in Cape Town, this is,the…

Almost as soon as we had arrived in Australia we lost my elder sister Niki in a car accident. Just the other day I wrote in this blog about completing eight happy years in Oz but eight years without her. Poorer in mind and heart with her physical absence but richer in thought and care…

Heading out today we left the usual paths and parks and walked through the suburb into the next ones. Ashgrove and Paddington. Old and established suburbs in Brisbane and my focus today is a mixture of houses and gardens. I mark this blog to coincide with news from Cyprus that the Archbishop of the Greek…

A few Famagustians and my sister Anna Marangou, Art Historian and Archaeologist have launched an initiative called Famagusta for the whole of Cyprus. This is a beautiful sea side town on the south side of the island from which its citizens fled in 1974. The city was then closed off and left abandoned and it…

And we are back – yes Discoveries with Dougall is starting up again but let me first set the scene. The children are now back in school for the beginning of a new academic year. Its still hard for me to get my head around this start date even after some years. The families are…

Waking up to a cloudless sky in Brisbane and about 31C- the wishes are coming in and the insta stories. BBQs and beach parties all in celebration of Australia Day today. A continent I barely knew, nor planned to visit and yet here I am. Australia has taken me in and I have found my…

For all its dark moments, and there have been a few in the new year, there are also moments of hope and aspiration, moments of simple joys and jubilations. I thought long and hard about today and even grappled about what I could possibly say. I have looked forward to this day for months. Why,…

There may come a time when we will be eating reconstituted lookalikes in our futuristic post pandemic world. So as a mark of a minor legacy for what was achieved in this corner of Redhill I attach the Head Gardener’s harvest of cherry tomatoes from the vine. Yes exquisite in every sense, colour, crunchiness, juiciness…

On Friday the 8th of January 2021 Brisbane was put into lockdown. The reason, a cleaner was positive for the UK variant of Covid – 19. One Case. But Queensland Health and the Premier acted immediately, locked down the City and made masks mandatory. Yesterday, possibly for the second time ever, I went out wearing…

This week marks a return to some form of normality. Which one I hear you ask ? Is this the one before Covid hit or the one subsequent to it? To be honest I am not sure what the answer is. We were all rushing to the end of the year and for good reason,…